Sia,—For many years now there has been an impasse over
this problem. referred to again by Janus this week. To fix Easter in the way proposed would be an enormous advantage to the country, but the Churches, or some branches of them, reply with a non possumus.
Does not this situation offer a golden opportunity for severing lot ever the unnatural connection between a great Church festival and a public holiday ? One need be no kill-joy to dislike intensely the way in which Good Friday, of all days in the year, is given over to great football matches and the like. Let this holiday be on the suggested fixed date, while the Church, if our leaders still desire it, continues to maintain a Jewish reckoning. Once in five or six years the two would coincide. For the rest, Good Friday would be observed as it should be, even if church attendances were somewhat affected. But there would be nothing whatever to diminish the congregations on Easter Day. On the contrary, far fewer people would be away from home, and could communicate in their own parish churches. This, incidentally, would give a much fairer criterion of the number of Church members, which is often derived from the Easter Communion.—Yours faithfully,
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